Las Hijas de Berta Caceres (after Picasso)

Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores
(March 4, 1971 – March 3, 2016) In a country with growing socioeconomic
inequality and human rights violations, Berta Cáceres rallied the indigenous
Lenca people of Honduras and waged a grassroots campaign that successfully
pressured the world’s largest dam builder to pull out of the Agua Zarca Dam—for
which she won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015. Since the 2009 coup,
Honduras has witnessed an explosive growth in environmentally destructive
megaprojects that would displace indigenous communities. Almost 30 percent of
the country’s land was earmarked for mining concessions, creating a demand for
cheap energy to power future mining operations. To meet this need, the
government approved hundreds of dam projects around the country, privatizing
rivers, land, and uprooting communities. Among them was the Agua Zarca Dam, a
joint project of Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos and Chinese
state-owned Sinohydro, the world’s largest dam developer. Agua Zarca, slated
for construction on the sacred Gualcarque River, was pushed through without
consulting the indigenous Lenca people—a violation of international treaties
governing indigenous peoples’ rights. The dam would cut off the supply of
water, food and medicine for hundreds of Lenca people and violate their right
to manage and live off their land. Cáceres, a Lenca woman, grew up during the
violence that swept through Central America in the 1980s. Her mother, a midwife
and social activist, took in and cared for refugees from El Salvador, teaching
her young children the value of standing up for disenfranchised people. Cáceres
grew up to become a student activist and in 1993, she cofounded the National Council of Popular and
Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) to address the
growing threats posed to Lenca communities by illegal logging, fight for their
territorial rights and improve their livelihoods. She was assassinated in her
home by armed intruders, after years of threats against her life. According to
research by Global Witness,
Honduras is the most dangerous country in the world, relative to its size, for
environmental defenders protecting forests and rivers. Cáceres is survived by
her three daughters: Berta Isabel Zuniga Caceres, Laura Zuniga Caceres, and
Olivia Marcela Zuniga Caceres, -- all of whom, along with their brother
Salvador, continue tirelessly en La Lucha.